:: Round Robin Rebels - Round 2 ::

If you happened to stop by last week or came from allpeoplequilt.com, you already know what we are all about. But if you simply stumbled here on your own, I encourage you to check out all of our blogs from last week where we shared our rules (or lack thereof) for our Round Robin quilt project and the evolution of Gudrun's quilt. You can find links at the bottom of this post.

This is a little reminiscent of the actual journey of these quilts, because they traveled in this order..... Gudrun sent a quilt to Kari, I received a box from Kari each month, and I sent each quilt to Terry Atkinson, who sent quilts along to Gudrun. Since we covered Gudrun's quilt last week, we are all going to focus on Kari's quilt this week.

Karis quilt....

I honestly thought that of all the quilts, Kari's would be the easiest for me because our styles tend toward the traditional style. As we were making our own centers, she shared with me that one thing she realized while making hers was that the "no rules" for our round robin was actually a bit difficult for her and that she kinda liked rules. Now, let me remind you that the only real "rules" we had were to make a center block (any size, any shape) and include 3 yards of a bakcground fabric along with 20 fat quarters for everyone to use.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found a center block made with batik's and yardage only of 7 different fabrics..... NO fat quarters! Leave it to the rule follower to break the rules!

{ Round Robin Rebels - Kari's center block before my borders }

It cracked me up because here she was, the rule follower in the group, and she is the only one who didn't follow the 20 fat quarter rule! But in her defense, I can see why she didn't include 20 different fabrics, because I did go out and try to find others to add to the quilt and it was very difficult with batiks. In fact, here is a little excerpt from my Round Robin Journal:

Jan 14, 2013

Kari only included about 7 different fabrics and they look great together, but I’m thinking I might be able to find something that will “sparkle” a little. We shall see!

Jan 16, 2013

I don’t use batiks very often. Not because I don’t like them. I do. As an artist I find them fascintating. But that fusion of colors also makes them hard to work with because an entire quilt from them can become very "bizzy" very quickly. I’ve realized this as I was searching and trying to add fabrics to Kari's block. Even if the color was right, many of them became overpowering. I ended up with a large print and two very subtle prints to calm it down and I really like how it’s coming together.

The Round Robin lesson I learned?

Go with your gut.... Just because someone says you need to have "X" number of fabrics doesn't mean that it has to be done that way. Kari chose to bend the rules a little and got fantastic results.

So, after staring at Kari's block for 3 weeks (yes, I had a staring contest with every single one of these quilts) I decided that I really wanted to mimic the rounded corners she had created with the 30 degree angles, and once again I headed to my computer to redraw her block in Illustrator. After enlarging a 30 degree pie shape, I found that I loved the effect I got simply by alternating the rotation of each piece and voila! My border was planned! And in case you are wondering, I added the little gold dotted fabric and the bold brown geometric print to the fabrics that Kari sent with her block. The other fabrics that I bought because I thought they would work just ended up in my stash :-)

{ Round Robin Rebels - Testing my idea }

{ Round Robin Rebels - Kari's block after adding my border }

And I must say that the quilting done by the very talented Angela Walters is amazing. On ALL of our quilts! Kudos to her for a doing such an incredible job!

What I particularly liked about this border was the way it seamlessly extended the existing block so that it was not evident where the center block ended and the border began, becoming more of an extension of it rather than a separate entity.

Another Round Robin Lesson I learned......

Look at the quilt as a whole, not as separate borders. Let each quilt talk to you and try to pull elements from previous rounds instead of worrying about making something totally unique. Believe me, I struggled with this because I felt like I was cheating, not coming up with my own idea. But by using the same elements that Kari had already used, the second border just flows from the center and the result makes it hard to decide where one section ends and the other begins.

What I would consider doing differently.....

I added the narrow border as an afterthought, so that it was a workable size ( i.e. an even measurement instead of some odd size) for Terry. Although I didn't ask Terry if it helped her or made it harder for her, I wonder if I had not added it where her creative process would have taken her. Did she curse that narrow border and consider removing it? If it was not there, would she have looked at the quilt differently? Or was it a nice break point that allowed her to add that incredible pieced and curved border that she did.....

If you haven't seen it, I guess you will just have to go visit her blog this week! You can see her blog here.

One more thing I want to share....

While working on Kari's border I was reminded how much I dislike connector corners because of the extra time it takes to mark the diagonal on each of those squares. So this is a method I sometimes use that allows me to skip that step and makes my piecing go faster....

Cut all the squares to be used as connector corners. Lay them on the ironing board right sides down and press them flat.

Now, fold them in half diagonally and press again, pressing a crease along the diagonal.

Place the small squares on the large square (or whatever piece you are adding a connector corner to).

Sew along the diagonal crease. Chain piecing works great here.

To trim the excess, lay the chain of pieces on the cutting mat with the stitching in a straight line. Use a rotary ruler and cutter to trim all the excess with one cut.

Now, you have extra pairs of triangles that you have trimmed off. Instead of throwing them away, set them next to your machine and use them as Beginners and Enders when stitching other things and before you know it you will have a collection of bias squares to use in another project!

Now, you really need to go visit the other blogs to see what their thought process was and to see a final reveal of Kari's quilt.

If you happened to stop by last week or came from allpeoplequilt.com, you already know what we are all about. But if you simply stumbled here on your own, I encourage you to check out all of our blogs from last week where we shared our rules (or lack thereof) for our Round Robin quilt project and the evolution of Gudrun's quilt. You can find links at the bottom of this post.

This is a little reminiscent of the actual journey of these quilts, because they traveled in this order..... Gudrun sent a quilt to Kari, I received a box from Kari each month, and I sent each quilt to Terry Atkinson, who sent quilts along to Gudrun. Since we covered Gudrun's quilt last week, we are all going to focus on Kari's quilt this week.

Karis quilt....

I honestly thought that of all the quilts, Kari's would be the easiest for me because our styles tend toward the traditional style. As we were making our own centers, she shared with me that one thing she realized while making hers was that the "no rules" for our round robin was actually a bit difficult for her and that she kinda liked rules. Now, let me remind you that the only real "rules" we had were to make a center block (any size, any shape) and include 3 yards of a bakcground fabric along with 20 fat quarters for everyone to use.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found a center block made with batik's and yardage only of 7 different fabrics..... NO fat quarters! Leave it to the rule follower to break the rules!

{ Round Robin Rebels - Kari's center block before my borders }

It cracked me up because here she was, the rule follower in the group, and she is the only one who didn't follow the 20 fat quarter rule! But in her defense, I can see why she didn't include 20 different fabrics, because I did go out and try to find others to add to the quilt and it was very difficult with batiks. In fact, here is a little excerpt from my Round Robin Journal:

Jan 14, 2013

Kari only included about 7 different fabrics and they look great together, but I’m thinking I might be able to find something that will “sparkle” a little. We shall see!

Jan 16, 2013

I don’t use batiks very often. Not because I don’t like them. I do. As an artist I find them fascintating. But that fusion of colors also makes them hard to work with because an entire quilt from them can become very "bizzy" very quickly. I’ve realized this as I was searching and trying to add fabrics to Kari's block. Even if the color was right, many of them became overpowering. I ended up with a large print and two very subtle prints to calm it down and I really like how it’s coming together.

The Round Robin lesson I learned?

Go with your gut.... Just because someone says you need to have "X" number of fabrics doesn't mean that it has to be done that way. Kari chose to bend the rules a little and got fantastic results.

So, after staring at Kari's block for 3 weeks (yes, I had a staring contest with every single one of these quilts) I decided that I really wanted to mimic the rounded corners she had created with the 30 degree angles, and once again I headed to my computer to redraw her block in Illustrator. After enlarging a 30 degree pie shape, I found that I loved the effect I got simply by alternating the rotation of each piece and voila! My border was planned! And in case you are wondering, I added the little gold dotted fabric and the bold brown geometric print to the fabrics that Kari sent with her block. The other fabrics that I bought because I thought they would work just ended up in my stash :-)

{ Round Robin Rebels - Testing my idea }

{ Round Robin Rebels - Kari's block after adding my border }

And I must say that the quilting done by the very talented Angela Walters is amazing. On ALL of our quilts! Kudos to her for a doing such an incredible job!

What I particularly liked about this border was the way it seamlessly extended the existing block so that it was not evident where the center block ended and the border began, becoming more of an extension of it rather than a separate entity.

Another Round Robin Lesson I learned......

Look at the quilt as a whole, not as separate borders. Let each quilt talk to you and try to pull elements from previous rounds instead of worrying about making something totally unique. Believe me, I struggled with this because I felt like I was cheating, not coming up with my own idea. But by using the same elements that Kari had already used, the second border just flows from the center and the result makes it hard to decide where one section ends and the other begins.

What I would consider doing differently.....

I added the narrow border as an afterthought, so that it was a workable size ( i.e. an even measurement instead of some odd size) for Terry. Although I didn't ask Terry if it helped her or made it harder for her, I wonder if I had not added it where her creative process would have taken her. Did she curse that narrow border and consider removing it? If it was not there, would she have looked at the quilt differently? Or was it a nice break point that allowed her to add that incredible pieced and curved border that she did.....

If you haven't seen it, I guess you will just have to go visit her blog this week! You can see her blog here.

One more thing I want to share....

While working on Kari's border I was reminded how much I dislike connector corners because of the extra time it takes to mark the diagonal on each of those squares. So this is a method I sometimes use that allows me to skip that step and makes my piecing go faster....

Cut all the squares to be used as connector corners. Lay them on the ironing board right sides down and press them flat.

Now, fold them in half diagonally and press again, pressing a crease along the diagonal.

Place the small squares on the large square (or whatever piece you are adding a connector corner to).

Sew along the diagonal crease. Chain piecing works great here.

To trim the excess, lay the chain of pieces on the cutting mat with the stitching in a straight line. Use a rotary ruler and cutter to trim all the excess with one cut.

Now, you have extra pairs of triangles that you have trimmed off. Instead of throwing them away, set them next to your machine and use them as Beginners and Enders when stitching other things and before you know it you will have a collection of bias squares to use in another project!

Now, you really need to go visit the other blogs to see what their thought process was and to see a final reveal of Kari's quilt.